Unnatural Causes
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: "You don't just...just keel over and die when you're twenty-two!"


_Previously appeared in_ Route 666 #5 _(2012), from Ashton Press_

**Unnatural Causes**  
K Hanna Korossy

Katrina left a lot of ghosts behind.

Every natural disaster did. Not just of the average unfinished-business, violent-death Casper variety, but also those slumbering spirits stirred up by wrecked buildings, disturbed graves, and despoiled churches. Then there were the other supernaturals that swept into ravaged areas, creatures that fed off chaos, death, and the upset balance of nature. Not to mention the angry and frustrated living who took matters into their own hands. And when all of that came together in New Orleans, one of the most supernatural-infused areas of the country, well, it wasn't a coincidence that a lot of hunters were suddenly in town.

"You wanna tag along with Jeff and Jamie tonight to check out that ghoul sighting?" Sam asked as he swallowed the last of his very good cup of coffee.

Dean considered it a moment while chowing down on the bowl of beignets he'd gotten—Sam had never seen anyone eat so many in one sitting, not even the frat guys at Stanford during Mardi Gras—before shaking his head. "Naw, they've got it. I was thinking we could check out the sights around town," Dean's eyes followed the small, dark-haired waitress around the coffee shop, "maybe do a little—"

"Yeah, I know exactly what you'd like to _do,_" Sam said with a roll of the eyes. "Fine, just don't stay out too late—we should get an early start for Birmingham."

Dean's eyes reluctantly peeled away from the waitress and returned to him, full of a new kind of calculation. "You could come with me."

Sam sighed. "Dean…"

"Dude, listen." Dean leaned forward, hands cradling his own steaming mug, face suddenly devoid of any humor. "I'm not saying you have to go home with some hot chick, okay? Although, it wouldn't hurt you to get some…" Seeing he was losing Sam, he quickly switched back gears. "All I'm saying is, it's okay to have a little fun sometimes. Jessica wouldn't have wanted you to be miserable the rest of your life, right? Sam?"

Sam shifted his gaze to the side, feeling the familiar prickle in his eyes at the mention of her name. It had been almost half a year now, and Dean was right, Jess would be kicking his ass for still being so deep in mourning for her. But how did you stop missing someone you loved who'd been torn away from you? How was he supposed to stop feeling sick at the idea of kissing a girl again, or disloyal at the thought of going out with someone who wasn't Jess? Dean had been the one, in those first awful days after, who'd said it would take time.

"Or," Dean cut through the melancholy, "we could find that place Jeff mentioned, with the died-and-gone-to-heaven shrimp." He waggled persuasive eyebrows at Sam.

Sam felt his limp spirits lift a little in spite of himself. That was how it got better, he knew: a brother who refused to let him sink, who would give up his own idea of fun to muster some for Sam.

"I mean, dude, we're in _Naw'leans_," Dean drawled with infectious enthusiasm.

Sam's smile was small but real. They _were_ in New Orleans, the city that had been ravaged just months before Jess had died in flames. Yet there they were, having pastries and coffee in a café after a week of putting ghosts to rest. He needed to start piecing back together his own life, too. "Yeah, all right," Sam conceded, not missing the way Dean lit up, as if his own plans for the evening hadn't just been derailed.

"All right," Dean agreed happily, digging out his wallet. He tossed a bill on the table and drained the last of his coffee before he stood. "Man, that's good joe. What d'you call it again?"

"Espresso?" Sam said, amused.

"Huh. We should try making that sometime."

"Right, Dean. We can get an espresso machine for the trunk."

Dean pulled a face as they stepped out into the late-afternoon foot traffic on the street. "You can't just nuke it?"

Sam shook his head. It amazed him sometime how his older brother, who could fashion an EMF meter out of a Walkman and rebuild a car engine from scratch, didn't know how so many other basic things in the world worked. But then, this wasn't _his_ world. Dean was smart, but it had always been a need-to-know kind of smart: anything to do with hunting, cars, pop culture, and women he had down pat. Everything else was junk knowledge and he rarely bothered. Sam still remembered Dean's utter bafflement at facing an ATM when Sam sent him to get the last of his student-loan money. Sometimes he had his suspicions that Dean overplayed his ignorance to draw Sam out, maybe even just to make him smile. But other times the holes in Dean's experience still astonished him. It was easy to forget that his older brother hadn't had the adult foray into _normal _that Sam had had at school, and made him wonder how Dean had gotten along those last three-plus years, especially when Dad booked on him. Then again, John Winchester had been baffled once by a toaster…

And Sam was going back to school one day. What would happen to his brother then? Sam wouldn't leave him until Dean was back with Dad and he made sure they'd be okay, but still.

He sighed and set the thought aside for another day, determined to enjoy the evening with his brother.

They strolled along the street in easy camaraderie, Sam noting the damages wrought by the hurricane, Dean tossing off random observations and stories. He'd been here just before their dad had disappeared, checking out a bad bokor, and he pointed out places he'd been to during that visit—_dude, the bartender there makes this drink with _thirty-four_ different layers_—and how things had changed even in those last few months. The city really was a testament to survival and grit. Sam knew there was a lesson in there for him, too.

The crowds thickened as dusk fell, strings of lights on the restaurants and cafes throwing stray beams and shadows over the throng of people. Shoulders brushed his, sometimes almost bruisingly, one small collision puffing dust into Sam's face. He coughed, knuckling his eyes, then pulled in closer to Dean, who gave him a questioning look. Sam just shrugged. It would be stupid to lose each other on the street, after they'd managed to stick together during a game of hide-and-seek with an unhappy spirit earlier that day.

"Hey, did Dad ever bring us here?" it suddenly occurred to him to ask. "I don't remember."

Dean shot him a sideways glance, as if gauging the intent of the question. Despite having finally found their dad—briefly—a few weeks before, John Winchester remained a sensitive subject between them, some combination of sinner and saint to them both. Of course, Dean leaned toward the latter while Sam continued to hew to the former.

His big brother finally shrugged.

"I know we swung through northern Louisiana one time, but I don't think we ever hit the coast. Maybe Dad did, but not with me—us."

The correction was quick but significant. Dean hadn't lied to him about how often John had taken off on hunts on his own while Sam was at school, but he'd certainly downplayed it. Always defending the man; Sam sighed. As if he didn't know how miserable Dean must've been on his own.

"I don't know, I think there were some places he just didn't want to take us as kids, you know?" Dean continued after a thoughtful pause. "I mean, don't get me wrong, the Big Easy's awesome, but a lot of it's not exactly family-friendly, you know? Especially to hunters."

Sam snorted; that was probably an understatement. Vodoun and houdou could be, like many religions, used for good or evil depending on the practitioners' intent. But they usually dealt with the dark side of people, and the dark here could be scary dark.

Dean was still talking, but it was getting harder to hear him. The crowds seemed to have grown, their voices a high-pitched drone. Sam swallowed to pop his ears in the humidly hot, dense air, without success.

Actually, the air felt like it was growing thicker. The faces around him swam in front of Sam's eyes, and his legs were wobbly. That was weird; he wasn't _that _tired. Sam blinked, but that seemed to take really long, too, and everything just got blurrier. Sam stopped, pressing a hand to his chest as his lungs labored against the syrupy air, trying to fill themselves and failing.

Dean had halted beside him, his face turned toward Sam, eyebrows drawn together and lips moving silently.

"Can't…I can't hear," Sam tried to say, but it sounded like squeaking to his ears. He fumbled for Dean's arm, trying to express his mounting panic. He couldn't expand his chest. "Can't breathe…"

Dean's face showed alarm now, reflecting Sam's feelings. He thought he felt Dean's hands digging into his biceps, but numbness was stealing over him, robbing him of the grounding touch. He started to sink to the ground, propped up only by Dean's increasingly frantic hold.

He was pretty sure he was dying. Disbelief warred with fear. Here, now? Not even on a hunt? In front of Dean?

Oh, God, Dean…

Dark flickered around the edges of his vision. Sam kept his eyes glued to his brother, an anchor in the real terror that was washing through him now, his frozen body and his stilling heart. His lips wouldn't move, wouldn't deliver one last message, so he tried hard to communicate it with his eyes.

Dean was yelling, mouth stretched wide and eyes wild.

It was the last thing Sam saw before the black tunnel narrowed to a pinpoint of light, and then even that vanished.

00000

This couldn't be happening. There had to be some mistake.

That was all he could think while he'd watched Sam stop breathing in front of him, his expressive face frightened and sorrowful and friggin' _apologetic. _And then so still and blue even as Dean made a frantic call and started CPR and yelled at him to just _breathe _because they weren't on a hunt, there was nothing, no bees around, no weapons, no monsters, and Sam had just been talking and even honest-to-God _laughing, _and there was nothing, no enemy to protect him from, no injury to fix, nothing, and people didn't just _freaking stop breathing in the middle of the street and _DIE.

Except for, apparently, his always-rebellious little brother.

"I'm sorry," the doctor had started with as Dean shifted from one foot to another, trying to keep the gurney behind him in sight. "We couldn't revive him."

This couldn't be real. It didn't just, _couldn't just _happen.

"I need to talk to him." Dean's mouth moved, words falling out, he didn't even know what. "Sam! _Sammy!"_

The frenzied activity that had descended on Sam as they'd wheeled in from the ambulance, had died down. Staff was starting to drift to other patients, the remaining nurses slowing their pace as they worked. They were done with their job, but Sam didn't look okay. He wasn't moving.

"You need to fix him," Dean said, realizing he was interrupting whatever the doctor had apparently been saying. "You hear me? You do your job and get in there and _fix him!"_

"I'm so sorry. Sometimes there isn't anything we can do."

Dean shook his head. It was unreal. Like…the way Ellicott had messed with Sam's head. Or the visions Sam had. The kind of reality-bending about six things they hunted could do. Or maybe he was the one dying and this was his brain's last frightened gasp. Because—

"—you don't just…just keel over and die when you're twenty-two!" Dean growled. He somehow had the doctor's coat in both fists. "He was fine—he was _fine!"_

A nurse pulled the sheet up Sam's body, paused at his neck, looking back at Dean. Left it there, not covering his face. See? She didn't think he was dead, either.

"…sometimes happens…heart…undiagnosed…rare but…autopsy."

Dean's eyes snapped back to the rambling doctor. "What?"

"An autopsy. They'll do it tomorrow, and we can find out then what happened." The doctor started to put a hand on Dean's shoulder, wisely rethought it and let it drop. "I'm very sorry."

Dean fell back a step. The doctor seemed to take that as dismissal and hurried off. Didn't matter—none of it mattered. Dean just kept his eyes on his little brother, waiting for the tremble of the eyelashes, the stutter of the chest that heralded another nightmare. Sam had been getting better about them recently, just as Dean had promised him, slept through most nights now. He'd been a little worse after that bitch Meg had brought it all up again and Dad had told them a demon had killed Jessica, but Sam had rebounded. He was tough. Tougher than Dean; he'd been able to walk away and start a new life at school. Dean couldn't have done that. He wasn't anything without his family.

Sam couldn't be gone. Dean needed him. And the kid was friggin' _right there._

There was no one by the bed anymore. Sam was lying there looking asleep. That made more sense; he was tired. They both were. They'd just finished a hunt. Dean had kept him safe on the job. He should've been okay, should've been safe. This was a…a hallucination. Maybe Dean had been concussed. Sam was probably yelling at him to wake up already out in the real world.

Sam's hand was still warm, pliable. It felt alive. But no pulse beat under Dean's fingers as they wrapped around the bony wrist.

"Sammy, I…" His throat was tight. Dean gulped, finding no relief. "I'll figure this out, okay? I don't—" _understand, believe, accept, know how I'll survive this _"—know what happened, what's gonna happen, but I'll…I'm gonna come back, so you just…wait for me, okay? You hear me? I can't…" _do this _"…I can't." His eyes were swimming, his voice choked. "I'll fix this. 'S my job, right?" The smile _hurt._

A small hand touched his arm, too small to be Sam's. "We'll take care of him," the woman—nurse—said, her features a blur. "I promise."

He clamped down a little tighter on Sam's hand, panicked at the thought of losing the connection. "Sammy…"

But there was no return squeeze.

Even more horrified by that realization, Dean let go and stumbled back from the figure that wasn't his brother, not anymore.

Not real. It just didn't make sense, not by their rules or anyone else's. _People's hearts give out all the time. _

"No, they don't, Sam," Dean whispered to himself.

There was a certain…preparedness you went into every hunt with. A readiness to die. To a lesser extent, a readiness to see someone else die, too, although Dean had never made his peace with that one, not even when it was that green hunter John had agreed to take on a hunt with them once who'd totally freaked out and gotten himself cut in two. But there was always that knowledge deep inside that this could be your final hunt, or your final hunt together. _It's a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. _That at least he could understand.

He was outside now, blindly moving. The crowds were buoyant; it was nearing the end of Lent, the celebration of Easter. Resurrection day. Just a couple of weeks before Sam's birthday. The scene on the street hadn't changed in the last few hours, but everything, everything else had.

_Sam is dead?_ It didn't make sense, no matter how he said it.

Sam had made it through some dangerous hunts. Bloody Mary, a shapeshifter with Dean's face, an Indian curse, their old _house _from Kansas, all had done their best to kill him. Dean should've heeded those near misses, should've taken Sam back to his apple-pie life where he was boring and on his own, and _safe._ But Dean had been selfish. He couldn't stand the thought of being alone, and he'd missed Sam too much. It felt so good to be back on the road together. He'd convinced himself that he could keep Sam safe, and… and…

How were you supposed to protect someone from a walk down the street?

He was knocking into people, leaving behind a stream of _heys!_ and curses. There was no reason for his hurry, no logic to that either. Why, to go back to an empty room with two beds and two duffel bags? To find a quiet spot to, _God_, call Dad? To go on, on his own?

The motel was in front of him. The key was in his hand. He went in.

_Dude, these beds are freakin' tiny._

_ No, Sasquatch, they just didn't make them for giants. _

Dean turned away from the pair of beds, the closer one rumpled, the farther neatly made, toward the only other door in the room.

_Did you see the pink bathroom? Must've known you were coming, Princess._

_ Bite me, Dean._

Breath hitching, his gaze swung to the TV.

_Seriously, man, _Dirty Jobs_ again?_

_ Dude, have you _seen _the jobs he takes? Makes salting and burning look like a field day._

_ I always sucked at field day. _

_ Yeah, well, it's those giraffe legs of yours._

He curled his hands into fists, darted his gaze to the wall.

_I think that bird's watching me._

_ That bir—You mean the one in the painting? Seriously, Dean?_

_ It's got beady eyes._

_ ALL birds have beady eyes, moron._

With a small, trapped sound, Dean spun around and lunged for the door.

Sam was standing on the other side.

That wasn't the only shock, although it was the one that commanded Dean's attention. Almost too late to catch the fact that Sam still looked less than healthy, skin bleached of color, hair disheveled, half-dressed in an ER-sliced shirt and jeans and bare feet. Or that a row of small crisscrosses of white sealed his lips.

Or that he had a knife clutched in his left hand, his wrong hand, which he clumsily raised even as Dean gaped, then sliced down at him.

Reality clicked back into place around him. There were so many things wrong with this picture, but this was finally something Dean understood and knew how to deal with.

He sidestepped the unskilled attack, then the backhanded arc of the second attempt. It was like facing someone who'd had no training, moving wholly on instinct, and that and the sickening row of stitches told Dean exactly what he was facing.

"Hold on, Sammy," he snapped, dodging with ease a whole-body lunge. A half-second later, he was behind Sam, one arm across his brother's chest, the other grabbing his knife hand. A squeeze at the base of the thumb, and Sam's hand twitched open, the knife clattering to the floor.

Dean didn't waste any time, hooking a foot around Sam's leg and tripping him. Again, a move a rookie could've gotten out of, but it wasn't the kid he'd helped train he was fighting.

Sam crashed back, Dean controlling his fall to the floor. He quickly rolled on top and locked himself into place on Sam's chest, the flailing arms trapped between his knees, his weight high up Sam's torso to keep from being bucked off.

"Sam. Sam!" he barked, hands on either side of the kid's face, peering into his eyes.

They were blank, glazed. Not the eyes he'd been looking into most of his life.

That was actually good news, buoying Dean's confidence that he was on the right track. Leaning one arm forward to pin Sam across the forehead, Dean reached back for his boot knife with the other. "Okay, if you can hear me, Sam, try to hold still, okay? This's gonna smart."

It was delicate, sliding the blade in between the cord that was stitched across his mouth and sawing it free without cutting his brother. Dean didn't wholly succeed, a thin line of red smearing against Sam's pale skin as the first stitch popped. But considering the way he was still squirming under Dean, they were probably lucky it wasn't worse. Dean only risked cutting two of the Xs, then dropped the knife to the side and slid his hand down from Sam's forehead to his jaw. With cheeks squeezed together, Sam's lips parted a tiny bit in the middle where the stitches were severed.

"Easy, dude, almost there," Dean promised. This time he reached the other way to snag the weapons bag that was at the foot of his bed. The canister of salt was still on top from their salt-and-burn early that morning. Dean shucked the cap with his teeth and poured a generous teaspoonful into Sam's parted mouth.

Sam made a high, thin sound, his back bowing beneath Dean. His neck corded with the strain, fingers spread wide in rictus past Dean's knees as his eyes rolled wildly.

The reaction was both what he'd hoped and dreaded. "Breathe, Sam, breathe," Dean soothed. "Focus on me, all right? I know it hurts, but you can do it."

Sam was puffing like a steam engine, no easy task with most of his mouth still sealed. The stitches tore a little next to where Dean had cut them, more blood bubbling on his lips.

Dean pressed his hand over Sam's mouth, trying to keep him from moving it too much. He was just inches above his brother's face, his eyes glued to Sam's. "Eyes on me, bro, right here. It's almost over. That's it, Sam, come back to me."

The strain was starting to leave the lean body. Under Dean's thumb where it was pressed below Sam's jaw, his heart beat strong and unmistakable, slowing from panic to mere agitation. Sam's eyes wandered, found his, and attempted to focus. He was still scared, confused, and in pain, but he knew Dean. And the way recognition bled the worst of the fear away made Dean swallow hard.

"Hey," he said, suddenly hoarse. "There you are. Welcome back, Sammy."

00000

It had been one of his worst days ever, and considering his life, that was saying something.

He'd thought he was dying out on the street. His body was shutting down on him, Dean was clutching him in fear, and all Sam felt was cold. His brother's face, twisted in a grimace of panic and grief as he futilely tried to keep Sam there, was the last thing he thought he'd ever see.

So it had been more than a little jarring to wake up to the strange hands all over his body and the melee of people yelling and machines blaring. It got so much worse when he realized he couldn't move, not a finger or an eyelid. He'd listened in horrified, frozen helplessness as medical staff—Dean had apparently gotten him to a hospital—tried to _revive _him.

And failed.

Was he in Hell? He was pretty sure there was a Twilight Zone episode like this. There were things, natural and supernatural, that could paralyze you while leaving you conscious. Or was he dreaming? Maybe he'd gotten hurt on the hunt?

Then Dean was holding his hand like it was precious, whispering promises Sam wasn't supposed to hear and Dean couldn't make, sounding so completely broken.

That was when Sam had started to scream. And nobody heard him.

Dean had moaned his name before letting go of him, letting him go. Sam mercifully grayed out for a while after that.

The cold was the next thing he was aware of. His chest felt exposed, his feet freezing.

An even icier touch traced across his chest, leaving fire in its wake. There was the low sound of chanting, a language he didn't know but could recognize.

"Samuel Winchester." His left eye was thumbed open almost gently.

Sam had grasped greedily at the chance to see _anything, _even as a dark face with one even darker eye and one milky one slashed through with a scar, filled his limited field of vision.

"It is not you I seek my vengeance on, but you are the one who is able to deliver it for me. I thank you for this."

Sam cursed and denied in feverish, motionless silence.

"Peace," the man continued in his sonorous Creole lilt. "It will be over soon." He let go of Sam's eyelid, plunging him back into blindness. The chanting started up again.

Vodoun, Sam's mind raced to identify; the guy was practicing _Serpent-and-the-Rainbow, _zombie-dark magic stuff. Probably a bokor, and what had Dean said about the bokor he'd tangled with the year before? _Shut him down, _was all his brother had offered, and Sam hadn't pressed. He didn't think Dean would kill a human, but he hadn't wanted to know for sure. He'd been trying to be a hunter but not _offend your delicate sensibilities, _Dean had said more than once, and it was true, Dean had been right, and, oh, God, Sam would tell him so if he could just _move…_

Then the bokor had eased his mouth open, smeared the bitter-tasting paste on his tongue, and shut it again. The first prick of the needle in the fleshy part of his lower lip sent Sam into a new frenzy of—utterly useless—attempts to move. By the third stitch, his head was swimming, the chanting a loud whine in his ears.

Things got blurry after that.

Motion, although still not under his control.

The bokor's voice, dripping with malice and power, telling him what to do.

The distant sensations of blanched sight and cold touch and muffled sound…except for the bokor's commands.

Then Dean was leaning over him. He was yelling again, but a foggy part of Sam's brain noted that he looked determined this time, not terrified. It made nearly dead hope flicker alive again, and Sam started to struggle against his imprisonment once more.

He didn't feel the weight of Dean's body or the sting of his torn mouth. The next thing he knew was an explosion of saltiness against his taste buds, and then against the dam that held him captive in his head.

Control flowing back into his limbs, his fingers and toes, had _hurt, _eclipsing everything.

"Breathe…can do it…almost over…come back…"

Dean never had been patient.

And then he was _blinking, _opening his eyes and _looking _at Dean, and damned if his brother wasn't the best sight Sam had ever seen.

"Hey." Dean's grin returned the sentiment. "There you are. Welcome back, Sammy."

The fact that he'd been there all along—sorta—didn't dull the impact of those words at all. Sam tried to open his mouth for an emotional response, maybe a wheezy "it's Sam"…and a bright flare of pain changed his brilliant retort into a moan.

"Don't try to talk," Dean said with just enough exasperation to bring different kind of tears to Sam's eyes. "Take it easy a minute, I'll cut you free." He started to rise.

Sam's body was still coming back online. The hand he'd directed to grab Dean's wrist flopped against his hip instead.

Dean still managed to understand his intent, in that kind of telepathy you had with someone you'd shared space with almost all your life, the kind of in-tuneness Sam had never managed even with Jess. His brother knelt back on the floor next to Sam, folding his twitching arms more comfortably across his body. "I'm not going anywhere, okay? Just grabbing the kit out of the car. I'll be right back, Sam, I promise. We've got some catching up to do."

Sam managed a nod, deflating at how much energy even that took. He was starting to get back control of his body, but his emotions still felt like they running wild. It was pathetic how badly he wanted to try to follow Dean out the door, even if he had to crawl to do it.

Dean was back in seconds. Faster than seemed possible, but Sam wasn't complaining. His brother dropped a hand on his chest even as he rifled through the kit, and that felt like the only thing keeping Sam from jumping out of his ill-fitting skin.

"You okay down here? I don't wanna move you up to the bed if I don't have to—think you've been jerked around enough." He let go long enough to yank the blanket off the nearest bed and toss it over Sam.

Sam nodded. It felt like his head was going to wobble off.

Dean found the suture scissors and held them up, then eyed Sam with open sympathy. "Okay, hold on. This is gonna suck for a few minutes."

Sam cramped his hands around the nearest objects—the edge of the blanket and Dean's boot, and tried to stay still. The irony didn't escape him of struggling to do what he'd tried so hard to escape before.

"You know who did this to you?" Dean asked as he leaned in, the angled-blade scissors in hand.

Sam made an affirmative noise, trying not to yelp at the cold of the metal and then the tug on his pierced skin.

_Snip._ "Black dude, mid-fifties, scar through his eye?" _Snip._

The topic of conversation wasn't exactly relaxing, either, but it beat focusing on what Dean was doing. Sam made another sound of agreement.

Dean's jaw rippled, and he nodded. _Snip. _"Lundi. Thinks he's a descendant of Baron Samedi. He's, uh, the guy I put out of business last year." Dean's eyes dodged away from his. _Snip._ "Guess he set up shop again."

Dean was obviously feeling guilty. Sam rolled his eyes.

His brother's eyebrows rose. "Don't give me that. If Dad had been here, he'd have made sure Lundi was _done." _

Yeah, probably with a bullet. Sam growled a little.

_Snip. _"Dude, shut up," Dean grumbled back. "Seriously, it's like your superpower, how you can bitch about Dad without even opening your mouth." _Snip._

Sam glowered at him with watery eyes.

"Exactly." _Snip. _He set the scissors aside and grabbed the forceps. "Okay, here comes the fun part. You want some lidocaine first?" He dug out a syringe.

Just the sight of the needle made Sam shudder.

Dean's mouth twitched but not in amusement. "Yeah, okay. Got some topical here somewhere…" He dug the tube out of the kit. "Just another few minutes, okay?"

"'Kay," Sam whispered, lips cracking with pain at the movement.

Dean shot him a quelling look, then he was smoothing some of the numbing cream over Sam's mouth. The chemical taste beat the lingering rancid coating in his mouth.

Sam turned his head a little, looking for the weapons bag, then fumbled an arm free to tap the salt canister. He gave Dean a questioning look.

"You don't know?" Dean asked, surprised. "Lundi turned you into a friggin' zombie, man. Crescent City-style, not the dead, Romero kind. Obviously." He bent low, and Sam felt a tug against the skin around his mouth but only a dull pain. "They dose you with something that paralyzes you, slows your system down and makes it look like you're dead. Then he does the ritual—the whole stitching the mouth thing is part of that, sometimes even your eyes—and, bam, he's pulling the strings. Would've worn off—in a coupl'a days—but only way to break it sooner is salt. And you have to eat it, not just touch it." More tugging. It felt weird.

Sam tried not to think about it, to concentrate on the new information, the facts. So Lundi had somehow learned Dean was in town, and had tried to use Sam to get his revenge. It fit what the bokor had told him, and in a twisted kind of way it made sense: it would be a whole lot worse to be killed by your brother than by your enemy. Might've even worked if Dean weren't so well-trained, and well-informed.

Still, he narrowed his eyes in worry. "'Kay?" he croaked out, trying to move his mouth as little as possible.

Dean gave him a look that was equal parts irritation and confusion, but something in Sam's face must've clued him in. "Dude, you can't take me down when you're the one in the pilot's seat—you think you could get to me with Lundi at the controls?" At Sam's lack of relief, he made a face. "I'm fine, okay? A kindergartener could've wiped the floor with you, the way you were stiff-arming that knife."

Sam felt amusement crinkle at the corner of his eyes despite himself. _So how did _you_ do it?_

"Do _not _even think it," Dean ordered, pointing a finger sternly at him. "Think you're so funny," he continued under his breath. "I'll show _you _funny…"

He was still pulling threads free. Even with the numbing cream and the blatant efforts at distraction, reopening so many wounds on sensitive skin hurt. Sam closed his eyes and swallowed back the nauseated lurch of his stomach.

"He hurt you anywhere else?" Dean asked in a hushed voice, hands unceasingly moving and careful.

Sam hummed a negative.

Dean cleared his throat. "Were you, you know, _awake_ in the hospital?"

He considered lying, knowing Dean would be mortified that Sam had heard him like that. But Dean would know he was hiding something, and that would only make it worse. Sam looked an answer at Dean.

Dean's lips pressed tight. "Sorry, man, I should've picked up on it. The way you went down, stopped breathing, it didn't make sense." He gave Sam another compassionate look. "That must've sucked."

A laugh startled out of Sam. Figured that Dean would be focused on that. And it really had sucked. The horror of being a prisoner in his body, of being declared dead and having Dean mourn over him and the bokor manipulate him while he couldn't defend himself or even react… He was pretty sure he'd even heard talk of an autopsy. A half-swallowed sob followed the laugh.

Dean pulled one more thread out and tossed it and the forceps aside, immediately pressing a clean pad in its place. "It's done," he pledged. "It's over."

Sam pushed himself up with more determination than strength and hooked an arm around Dean's neck, pressing his face against his brother's shirt.

Dean must've missed him a little, too, the way he squeezed back. "Yeah," he quietly agreed.

00000

The room was mostly dark, thanks to the bedspread Dean had tacked over the window. It shouldn't have mattered which way he was facing in bed, but he lay on his side aimed toward Sam and knew without seeing that his brother was the same.

There'd been surprisingly little damage, considering Sam had been officially dead the evening before. Dean had had to rip off a few leads they'd left stuck on Sam's skin, and the kid had been a little hypothermic from wandering around New Orleans half dressed and, probably, in some lingering shock. His mouth was a mess of swollen skin and cracked scabs, but besides the unusual location, it wasn't even in the running for worst injury he'd ever gotten. If not for the incredibly awkward call from the hospital that they'd somehow misplaced his brother's body, Dean could have almost fooled himself he'd exaggerated the whole thing.

Except, there was Sam, rolled up like a burrito across from him and still occasionally shaken by a shiver. Dean guessed that was more from reaction at this point than actual cold.

"Wha' 'ow?" Yeah, Sam knew he wouldn't be going to sleep anytime soon, either.

He was tempted to tell Sam yet again to quit talking; the guy couldn't even form whole words without risking bleeding again. But expecting Sam not to talk was like expecting him not to breathe, and Dean saved them both the aggravation. "You mean Lundi? Son of a bitch is a coward—he had others doing the dirty work for him last year, too. He's not gonna come after us again today."

He could just _see_ Sam's lips thinning in a bitchy look that meant _that's not what I'm talking about and you know it. _

Dean sighed. "Dude, he tried to smoke us. Officially, he succeeded with you." That echo in his head, _I'm sorry, we couldn't revive him, _wasn't getting any quieter. "You see a way to end this without ending him? Because I don't, and, honestly? I'm not looking all that hard."

Sam was quiet a minute. Maybe reliving his own side of the nightmare, which was the last thing Dean wanted. But if it helped convince him that some people, the people who did evil that the regular world would never punish them for, needed stopping, maybe that was a silver lining. A really tarnished, paper-thin silver lining, but hey, Dean had ganked more with less.

But there was quiet, and then there was too quiet. While they'd been getting ready for bed, Sam had instantly shut down his ham-handed offer to take him back to school, but that didn't mean he was happy where he was, either. Or with what the job sometimes entailed. Dean cleared his throat. "Okay, maybe—"

"Fine," Sam said softly. "Bu' we let'im do i'mself."

"Wha—? Oh. Yeah, we could do that." It was the hunter's get-out-of-jail free card: turn a bad guy's mojo on himself. Practitioners of black voodoo magic got their power from seriously dark places; it didn't take much to unleash the monster and let it turn on its master. Even had some poetic justice. "I'll make some calls."

"Thax," Sam said quietly, and sounded like he meant it.

Dean made a face. "Go to sleep, Frankenstein."

"Shuddup, jer'."

He hadn't thought himself capable of it yet, but Dean found himself smiling. He tucked a hand under his pillow, fingertips just grazing the butt of his knife. "It's still pretty cold up in the Dakotas."

Sam's _random much? _bewilderment came across loud and clear.

"Good scarf and ski mask weather. You know, 'least 'til your mouth heals up."

Sam made a huffing sound he probably wouldn't admit was a laugh.

"And, hey, you got an excuse for a while not to kiss any girls." He held his breath, wondering how that would be taken or if he'd ventured too far. Considering what he'd gone through, Sam was doing pretty well, but he was obviously still shaky. Dean's hands were rock solid, of course. It always took him three tries to put toothpaste on his brush.

There was a pause, while Dean chewed his lip. Then, "Guess you' stuck wi' me for 'while," Sam whispered.

_Oh, God, I hope so. _Dean put just the right amount of wryness into his tone. "Awesome. Bitch."

Definitely a sound of amusement this time. And contentment.

Five minutes later, Sam was asleep.

Six minutes later, Dean was, too.

**The End**


End file.
